Irish theater review: "Don't Copy Me (copy)" - Beefing with Beckett

"Don't Copy Me (copy)" is about writing a play and the challenges of conceiving something new (and exciting.)

All a bit meta, but it raises interesting points – the lack of substantial roles for women, how to create and perform while being environmentally conscious, and why create new art when so much good art exists that can be adapted.

The play begins with a recitation of a 1988 letter informing a Dutch theater company that it could not perform "Waiting for Godot" with an all-female cast. Beckett and his attorneys filed a lawsuit, resulting in a ruling that the playwright was within his rights to forbid female casting. He and his legal representative subsequently inserted this clause in their licenses. “It is a condition that the play should be performed as written and the indications to the sex of the characters and performers must be followed at all times." The letter is displayed as a backdrop during the recitation.

The Gift Horse Theater troupe, featuring actors Signe Lury, Anna Winifred, and Faith Jones, consider their next production. They are environmentally conscious, and their works reflect this belief.

“Ah, look, we’ve been making plays in gardens for years. I’ve pissed in bushes during intervals for years.” And they are women.

Discussions ensue about– what is art? Why create anything new? They return to their target for derision - Samuel Beckett.

They are offended that he and his estate refuse to allow women to perform in his plays. The discussion continues into complaints about how few good roles exist for women in plays. Ibsen is mentioned but dismissed because he simply wrote a woman’s story.

Discussion follows about whether Shakespeare wrote his plays, whether they were written communally, or by his wife. “Sure, yeah, but when the playwright projects 1,422 lines of himself into 'Hamlet' and 58 into 'Ophelia,' that’s hardly a fair starting point.” Admittedly, “…there are some good ones. But they’re ideas of women. Projections of the men who wrote them - I’m saying that women aren’t really there.”

The troupe decides to request permission to stage the Beckett work "Play" at The Dublin Fringe Festival. Their request is rejected, and the cease-and-desist letter is displayed. So, they decide to turn Beckett’s relationship with his wife and his girlfriend into a play – creating a new work by using facts about the artist’s life rather than his works. Take that, attorneys!

The “play” transitions to a rapid-fire, alternating recitation of the facts of Beckett’s relationships, his works, and successes. His wife, Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil, speaks about her relationship with Beckett; his girlfriend, Barbara Bray, née Jacobs, speaks about her life and her relationship with the writer; Beckett talks about his relationships with both women and his work.

Then the actors copy (or mimic) the format of the recitation but replace Beckett’s facts with theirs. They speak about themselves, their thoughts, influences, and other persons mentioned earlier in the play. David Bowie, Pablo Picasso, and Julie Mahon-Jones, (the attorney who penned the cease-and-desist letter about the work 'Play') are name-checked. The troupe creates something new by copying what they created for Beckett and his women.

It all happens quickly, with a staccato delivery of the “new” bits of dialogue. The playwrights, Doris de Vries and Signe Lury, admit as much. “This is a weird part of the show, isn’t it? How are you going to explain this part to your colleagues at work tomorrow?”

Was new art created? Possibly, if the audience didn’t know much about the women in his life and their relationship with the writer. So those facts became art in the context of the play.

"Don't Copy Me (copy)" was presented as part of the Radical Care chapter of the Dublin Fringe Festival at the Smock Alley Theater - Patrick Sutton Studio.